The Journey by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice —
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations—
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you felt their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
though the sheets of clouds,
and their was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Solstice: from the Latin ‘sol‘ for sun and sistere, ‘to stand still’: “when the sun stands still”. The ancient observers of the heavenly bodies recognized that the points on the horizon where the sun rises and where the sun sets oscillate from north to south and back again. Two times a year, the sun stops to change directions. The day of the northern most point is known as the summer solstice, the day where the sun stops at southern most point is the winter solstice.
Soul: from the Old English ‘sawol‘, the Gothic ‘saiwal’, and the Old German ‘seula’, meaning the intrinsic animating life force in living beings extending beyond the physical plane.
Soulstice: Stopping to listen to your soul. Finding stillness and darkness where that ‘new voice’ begins to be heard, and allowing it to take you ‘deeper and deeper into the world’, where you meet life, face to face, in its rawness and unbridled intensity, in its compassion and sensitivity, in its unconditional love; where you meet your Self.
The soul is not your personality, your thoughts or ideas, although these may be shaped by the soul. The soul is not subject to logic, reason and order, although it and of itself has no problems with those. The soul cannot be controlled as it is wild and untamable. It demands freedom, loves darkness and stillness, and speaks of unimaginable layers and levels of connections and creativity. It is unencumbered by time.
The soul is ignored in the modern world of consumerism, greed, shallow self-centeredness, fear and anxiety. Most modern religions, east and west, are so into controlling the behavior of their followers, that the soul terrifies them, and they do all they can to demonize it. Most of the modern political structures are so bereft of soul as to be not only useless, but dangerous to the world. Same with the corporate structures.
But! But but but! The time of the Soul has come. The human soul, the planetary soul, the cosmic soul is awakening. There is no turning back. Find the stillness and rest there. Tada drshtuh svarupe avasthanam. Heed that inner voice, the voice that you ‘recognize as your own’. Not the other voices around you ‘shouting their bad advice’. Be willing to be lost, confused, melancholy. Find your spirit guides, your animist helpers, your higher selves, and ‘stride deeper and deeper into the world, from atom to galaxy and beyond, all right here and now, in this sacred space, in this sacred moment.
Blessings to you all on this special day.
“The Journey” was originally published in Mary Oliver’s book “Dream Works”.
Much thanks to poet and soul guardian David Whyte for bring this poem to my attention.